Chương 180: Chapter 178: The Igloo cave

Maybe I don't want to be a god. Maybe I don't want true immortality. But maybe I do want a minor form of it. If I could live forever, but only as long as I really wanted to, maybe that would be best. If I could be like one of those immortals in movies and television, where cutting off my head would end things forever, maybe that's what I want. That allows me to be sort of immortal. To be able to explore this world and others as time goes by. Surely, someone will eventually invent interstellar travel.

If need be, I'll do it myself. I'd have nothing but time, and that would be a great hyper fixation. Assuming I could make my brain hyper fixate on what I wanted it to. That's the other problem with hyper focus and hyper fixation. I don't get to choose where it goes or how long it lasts. Maybe I can hyper focus on the same thing over the course of several days or even weeks. I might be able to come back to the 'zone' and dive right back into the hyper fixation.

I've extended hyper fixations over the course of months and even years before. I know it's possible. But I also know that sometimes I will hyper focus on something that doesn't matter at all. I'll get fixated on a video game and have the same kind of focus that I had when writing my senior thesis in college. I'll get addicted to a television show and binge it for a week straight. I'll focus on what someone said to me and be unable to get it out of my mind.

Hyper fixations aren't always good, and they can't always be controlled. Meditation might help. I'm still really bad at it, despite having seventeen levels in the skill. It's useful to help me guide my thoughts, though, so maybe I can use it to guide my focus. Maybe I can urge myself towards a specific hyper focus. And then I just have to maintain it for as long as possible. And when it drops away, when it no longer gives me dopamine, then I'll have to find something else. Maybe some day I can get back to it.

It's kind of up to my brain. El understands. I think El's brain works much the same way mine does. Maybe she'll want to become a god too if I explain this to her. Maybe she'll want to help me make a new world. Or maybe she'll see the same problems that I'm seeing. Maybe she'll see problems that I'm not seeing. She could talk me out of it. I should definitely have a long conversation with her before making any rash or permanent decisions. The moon is almost at its zenith when we finally find a cave.

It's another small overhang, and it looks like it's man made. Or, more accurately, Amanda made. She seems to have used fire to melt into the snow and ice, building herself a little igloo style cave. She made it big enough for herself, which makes it a little cramped for us, but we can probably make it a little bigger once we build our own fire. It's especially impressive that Amanda built this igloo thing without magic. Our magic still hasn't come back, which means she doesn't have any either.

She did this with pure engineering and skill. Amanda must have either been very lucky or she knows a bit about mountains and avalanches. This cave that she built isn't going to collapse on us. The walls are thick ice, and it looks like she even built a fire in here. I bet the fire got it pretty warm in here. That's how igloos work. You built them with ice and snow, then you build a fire inside.

The fire melts the inner layer of the building, but the air around the igloo freezes it solid, causing the ice to keep the heat inside and insulate pretty effectively. That allows the inside of the igloo to get nice and warm. We set up furs on the floor and build a small fire. Sure enough, it makes the inside pretty cozy. It's frigid outside. I'd guess it was around zero degrees Fahrenheit, maybe a little bit colder. Like a day in mid January in Minneapolis.

But inside, it's probably closer to fifty or even sixty degrees. It helps not having the wind cut anything out. I keep watch from the mouth of the little cave, so that I can stay out of the wind myself. The other four cram themselves into the cave. We put out the fire, but the ambient heat of all of our bodies keeps it pretty comfortable inside. I keep an eye out at the mountain, but I don't expect to see anything. Maybe there will be someone chasing us, but I highly doubt it.

They wouldn't have to worry about the monsters we left behind, but they might have to worry about the hob village. And they might have to worry about the dire goats. No, I don't think any natives could survive this trek. And yet, I can't stop myself from taking watch. I could just go to sleep. We could probably leave earlier if I did, and catch up to Amanda faster. But there's that nagging feeling. If I don't watch, then something will happen. Something bad.

If there isn't someone prepared to handle an attack, then there will be an attack. It's like a law of karma. Besides, sitting on watch gives me time to think. Time to think about my build. I'm going to hit level forty eight soon. Probably as soon as tomorrow. I've been boosting up my willpower a lot over the last couple of levels. Do I want to keep doing that? I know I'm probably going to put points into agility again; I do that every level. But I'm going to have thirteen points to spend.

Do I really want to keep neglecting strength and vigor? They're both at two hundred, which is really high, but I notice that I'm always complaining that my attacks don't do more damage. And my melee attacks are dependent on my strength. With my current strength, my sword can do up to 502 damage. That's a fair amount, respectable even, but it could be more. My bow does up to 590 damage, all because I've been putting more points into agility.

My sword technically does more base damage than my bow, but there's a big difference in the amount of total damage that it does. An uncomfortable difference, now that I look at the numbers. I think I'll have to put some points in strength. Not as many as I put in agility, though. Maybe I'll do five in agility and just three in strength. That would make my sword do up to 505. Not much of a difference, but it will matter over time. And maybe putting points into vigor again will let me stay ahead of Gigi.

That would drive her crazy, and I don't mind teasing my friends a little bit. She'll definitely have more hit points when she reaches the same level as me, but I could lord it over her head for just a little while longer. We're coming to the end of our journey. However I slice it, however I look at it, we're really coming to the conclusion. In a few days at the most, we'll be at the top of the mountain. And then we'll have to decide on whether or not divinity is really for us.

Some of us, I'm sure, will become gods. And that will change everything. Will I decide to stay mortal? Will El? Maybe we'll be the only two who decide not to take the step into divinity. Maybe we'll come down the mountain just the two of us. Six people go up, two people come down. That would mean there will be nine gods. That's an odd number. That's probably good. Means the gods won't get deadlocked, assuming they use a democratic method for making decisions. And I think they probably will.

Ash and Gigi both really like democracy. They'll probably insist on it. And the two of them together would be a pretty strong voting block. Vincent will probably agree with them just to avoid argument, and that's a third of the gods right there. It shouldn't be that hard to make the others agree. And they might already, for all I know. I've never talked to a god in this world. I've never bothered to try. Maybe there is something to it. I might be able to get a prayer answered here, even if the answer is no.

I could try talking to them. I don't know any of their names, though. I don't know where I'd even begin. I can't just call them god. There are five of them. They can't all be named god. I probably should have asked someone, at some point, who the gods were. Wrax told me there were five major gods, and I just took that as fact. I never asked any questions about them. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

And that's putting aside all the minor gods that I could pray to. The minor gods, who are probably more likely to intercede. I wonder if Ash knows any of them. She's a paladin. Don't they use god in their magic? I'm pretty sure they do in dungeons and dragons. Maybe they do here too. Ash comes and sits down next to me. Between us, we completely cover the entrance to the little cave. I don't think she could have sat here if she was wearing her armor. We're shoulder to shoulder as it is.

"Do you know any of the minor gods?" I ask her.

"What, like, personally?" she asks. She shakes her head.

"No, I've never really gotten into the religion of this world."

"Why not?" She shrugs.

"I don't know. Maybe I never liked religion in our old world, and it just kind of carried over. I don't like the things people do in the name of religion. I don't like the way they twist the words of their own holy books, and I don't like relying on the words of a bunch of uneducated farmers from two thousand years ago to begin with."

"Six thousand," I correct her.

"If we're going with the judeo-christian model."

"Whatever," she says.

"Even worse. I hate the way people use religion to justify horrifying acts of evil. I want to make the world a better place, and worshiping god doesn't seem like the way to do that."

"But becoming one is?" She shrugs again.

"At least as a god, I'll have the ability to make a real impact. I'll be able to do something to make the world better. I won't be misinterpreting my own word. I'll be able to perform miracles that make things better for everyone. For all intelligent life."

"Are you going to limit yourself to intelligent life?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. There's so much we don't know about this. For all we know, being a god is just about holding the strands of the universe together. An eternal struggle to keep the world below us alive and well. Maybe we'll just be coming in to help the five gods who have been desperately trying to keep things together all this time. We'll lighten the burden on them, and then be able to do more than just maintain. We'll be able to improve."

"That's a nice wish," I say.

"But what if there's nothing you can do? What if there's no point to being a god? What if it's a trap?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like you said. With the holding the world together thing. What if having six gods, or even having nine gods, just spreads out the burden? What if the burden itself is infinite, and having more of you just means there are more places held together, but you don't have any freedom to actually do anything?"

"Then at least there will be more places held together," she says.

"At least the world will be better for my being there. That's enough for me."

"Even if you don't get to actually do anything?"

"If I end up spending eternity in service to this world, doing nothing other than keeping it going for the people who live in it, then I'm still doing something. I'm still doing good. I'm still helping. But I don't think it's going to be like that."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't think Amanda is that selfless. In fact, I think she's pretty selfish." I turn and look at her. Our faces are so close together. She smiles at me.

"You think Amanda is selfish?" She nods. We both turn to look out the cave entrance as she speaks.

"Amanda has always been looking out for herself. She has gotten more power for herself and has done all these things for herself. She killed a god just to see if she could. She explored the world getting more power for herself. And when she had all the power she felt she needed, she decided to come across the ocean and turn herself into a god."

"So? We did the same thing."

"And there are stories being told about the things we did in our pursuit of power. The people of Elmspire are telling tales of our heroics, of how we saved so many lives. They talk about us ending the war and saving all of them. They talk about the good that we've done for the world. I don't remember hearing anything about Amanda. People who saw her, who interacted with her, never said anything about her. Remember? She just passed through their lives. She did things for herself, not for other people."

"And so you think she's selfish?"

"Maybe not to a degree that it makes her a bad person or anything. But yeah, I think she's selfish. Selfish enough that she wouldn't become a god unless she knew it would allow her to keep being selfish, to keep doing things for herself, to keep following her own agenda."

"So she would talk to Root and make sure that being a god was worth it." That makes sense, now that I think about it. Ash nods.

"She would've made sure that this path went where she wanted it to. She would know that she will have power as a god. Maybe she just wants enough power that she can do anything she wants to without worrying about what other people think. Maybe she wants to have power over others. I don't know. But I know that she doesn't want to just serve. She doesn't want to just be a help to the world."

"It would make sense that she wouldn't really care about this world," I say.

"Even if she went through the death cycle a hundred times, she did it back in our world. She is a part of the system, but maybe not a part of this world. She might not love this world like we do."

"Do you love this world?" she asks me. She sounds genuinely curious. I take a second to think about it. And yeah, I do. I nod to Ash.

"I love this world," I say.

"I love that it's full of wonder and treasure and monsters and people. I love that it's full of opportunity. I love that I can be whatever I want here. I love that I could settle down if I wanted to, or keep adventuring, and there's nothing in the world that even wants to stop me. I love the freedom this world gives us."

"Did you feel trapped back on Earth?" I laugh at that.

"Constantly," I say.

"I was trapped in my job, trapped in my apartment, trapped in my life. I couldn't travel around, I couldn't go and randomly find a whole bunch of money. I had to work for every penny. And then I had to spend it frivolously on things like food and rent. I didn't have anywhere near the freedom we have here." She nods.

"That's why I want to be a god," she says.

"I want the next step in freedom."

"What do you mean?"

"We gained a huge amount of freedom when our old world turned into the tutorial. Then we came to this world, and got even more freedom. Becoming a god means more freedom still. It means a higher plane of understanding, and more choices, not fewer. I want to be a god because of that, because of the freedom to come."

"But what if being a god reduces your free will?" She shrugs. Her shoulder rubs against mine this time. She must be leaning towards me a little bit.

"I don't know if I'll notice. I mean, as long as I have at least some free will, a few restrictions aren't going to be a problem. I don't need to be able to do everything. I just need to be able to do whatever I want. I don't want to hurt anybody. I just want the freedom."

"It's weird to think about having less free will," I say.

"It's weird to consider that you might not mind it once it's partially gone, because you won't be able to miss it. There will be things that you just can't do, and that's fine. I can see that. I can't fly. I can't teleport. Even if I want to, I can't shape shift."

"Exactly. There are always things that we might want to do but are unable to manage. I doubt being a god will be any different. There will just be different things that I can and can't do. And probably a whole lot more that I can than that I can't." She takes a deep breath and lets out a contented sigh. Then she leans her head over and rests it on my shoulder.

"I think you should become a god, too," she says.

"I think you'd be good at it." That makes me laugh.

"No, I'm serious," she says.

"You've got a mind for freedom and for just being a good person. You've got the morality that a god needs. I think you'd be able to make the world a better place."

"I'd second and third guess every decision I ever made."

"So what? Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe gods debate their decisions a million times before they actually do anything. Maybe that's why they're not as involved in the day to day lives of the people of this world. Maybe your indecision will be a boon to the rest of us."

"I don't know," I say.

"I honestly am not sure what I'll decide."

"Just think about it," she says.

"Second and third guess whatever decision you make. You don't have to know until we get to that point of no return. For now, go get some sleep. We've probably got another really long day ahead of us tomorrow." She turns so that I can get up, and smiles at me as I head into the cave and find a warm spot to curl up into.